1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to the field of bio-affecting and body treating compositions and, more particularly, to photo-active compounds, composition, and methods useful in the detection, prevention, and/or treatment of, for example, cancerous tissues.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mono-L-aspartyl chlorin e6 tetra sodium salt is commonly known as Talaporfin Sodium, and is known to be a photo-active chemical or drug. For example, U.S. Pat. No. RE 37,180 relates to methods of using mono-L-aspartyl chlorin e6 that broadly include intravenous administration of the drug to a patient and applying light of an appropriate wave length to tissue containing the drug, to photo-activate the drug. Once activated, the drug occludes new blood vessels. Accordingly, the drug is useful in the treatment of diseases where blood vessel occlusion is expected to have a positive effect.
Talaporfin Sodium is typically produced from plant raw material. During the process, which includes both extraction and reaction steps, byproducts are produced. One of these byproducts is di-L-aspartyl chlorin e6. While diaspartyl chlorin e6 occurs as a reaction byproduct in relatively low quantity, typically about 5% in well controlled processes, it requires stringent processing for removal to purify the Talaporfin Sodium product to acceptable standards. For example, purifying a crude Talaporfin Sodium reaction product and/or removing various impurities (e.g., diaspartyl chlorin e6) usually requires subjecting a reaction product to multiple HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) steps to achieve an acceptable Talaporfin Sodium purity level. This purification procedure is expensive and time consuming, and may also lead to a substantial loss, up to about 50%, of the Talaporfin Sodium along with the removed impurities.
Accordingly, it is desirable to develop a process that produces a Talaporfin Sodium product without the expensive repetitive purification steps or with fewer processing steps. In addition, it is desirable to purify the reaction product without loss of a large proportion of the Talaporfin Sodium, and/or to maintain or increase the yield of Talaporfin Sodium product per mass of raw material input.
Commercial acceptance of Talaporfin Sodium is dependent on a variety of factors, such as cost to manufacture, shelf life, stability during storage, ease-of manufacture, efficacy, bioavailability, pharmacokinetic properties, etc. Therefore, it is desirable to have novel approaches of making Talaporfin Sodium that significantly reduce the manufacturing cost. It is also desirable to have novel compositions that result in purer forms of Talaporfin Sodium.
The present disclosure is directed to overcoming one or more of the shortcomings set forth above, and providing further related advantages.